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Posted by: Mark Manivong
Musician and children’s book author Gertrude Ina Robinson (b. 1868) created cloth figurines that match the characters in her children's book series, the Floral Fairies, 13 of which can now be found in the Archive for Floral Fairies and Rainbow Fairies in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress.
Posted in: 20th Century, Children's Literature
Posted by: Marianna Stell
Callie Beatie, Junior Fellow Summer of 2023 in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, writes about her experience processing the Russell Maret Artist Archive.
Posted in: Contemporary Book Arts
Posted by: Marianna Stell
An early proponent of gamification, the Franciscan preacher and satirist, Thomas Murner (1475-1537), used card games as pedagogical tools. The Rare Book and Special Collections Division has a copy of one of his logic card games, Logica memorativa: chartiludium logice, sive totius dialectice memoria (Strasburg, 1509).
Posted in: 16th Century, Education, Manuscript and Letterpress (Hand Press)
Posted by: Marianna Stell
The Library of Congress has two copies of the first edition of the Book of Mormon in addition to other foundational texts from the Church of the Latter-day Saints. This post discusses the institutional history of these copies and provides information about their material condition and how to gain digital access to the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and Book of Commandments.
Posted in: 19th Century, American History
Posted by: Marianna Stell
The publication of the Aitken Bible, the first complete Bible published in an independent America, was a landmark moment in the book history of the United States. This blog post provides information about former owners of the copy that is now housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress.
Posted in: American History
Posted by: Michael North
The Library of Congress owns two copies of the first printing of the Declaration of Independence, also known as the Dunlap Broadside, printed in Philadelphia on the evening of July 4 and the early morning of July 5, 1776. One copy was George Washington's, and the other came to the Library from collector Peter Force.
Posted in: 18th Century, 19th Century, American History, Seasonal
Posted by: Marianna Stell
Learn about the playful pen flourishes, or penwork, and the decorated initials that appear in a small Book of Hours that was created in the Northern Low Countries (Netherlands) during the fifteenth century.
Posted in: Manuscript and Letterpress (Hand Press)
Posted by: Amanda Zimmerman
This blog discusses the first edition of Ralph Ellison's posthumous book, Juneteenth, housed in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.
Posted in: 20th Century, Seasonal
Posted by: Marianna Stell
This post introduces readers to a once popular but now obsolete use of the term "common sense," as it is presented in Gregor Reisch (1467-1525)'s enormously popular text book, Margarita Philosophica, first printed in 1503.
Posted in: Education, History of Science, Manuscript and Letterpress (Hand Press)